


Compromised

by mostpeculiarway



Category: Original Work
Genre: Betrayal, Experienced Female Supervillain xcons Rookie Female Superhero - Freeform, F/F, Face-Sitting, Humiliation, Kidnapping, Non-Consensual Oral Sex, Obedience, Partial Mind Control, Shame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:27:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27869910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mostpeculiarway/pseuds/mostpeculiarway
Summary: Kelly, AKA Intrepid, was already having an awful day; a shocking revelation about the hot T.A. she’s been crushing on is about to make everything much, much worse.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Comments: 5
Kudos: 47
Collections: Consent Issues Exchange 2020





	Compromised

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flipflop_diva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/gifts).



Monday morning classes should probably be illegal. Kelly made a mental note to bring that up with Stellarrus at some point. He had connections.

She took another swig from her latte and glanced down at her phone. 10:43 AM, so she had … about half an hour to go. The professor was mid-diagram, his words little more than a background hum. She was going to have to scramble to catch up, again. Find time for office hours between patrols. Try not to wince at the disappointed and mildly bewildered expression Stellarrus gets every time she begs off a strategy meeting to get extra help, something he has apparently never needed in his life.

Fucking superheroes. Why had she ever wanted to be one?

Her wandering gaze caught Avery’s eye, off in a corner of the room taking discussion notes on behalf of that one visually-impaired student in the front row. Avery gave her an amused once-over through the thin, shaggy curtain of her undercut, mouth tilting up. Kelly smiled back awkwardly and looked away, feeling embarrassed.

Avery probably thought she was witnessing the aftermath of a typical night of undergraduate overindulgence, something to chuckle and commiserate nostalgically about the next time they bumped into each other at the campus Starbucks. The aftermath of an ugly, embarrassing midnight chase through back alleys, only to find that you’d been lured away from the real action--a major jailbreak, a ruthless white-collar-criminal-turned-flamboyant-mob-boss in the wind, and several dead police officers to boot--was a lot less endearing.

The news this morning certainly hadn’t thought it was cute. “Disgraceful,” “dangerously incompetent,” and “an object lesson on the terrible price of superheroics,” on the other hand … oh, Stellarrus was going to kill her when he came back from Neptune. Worse … he would be disappointed in her.

He’d said she was ready; she’d said she wasn’t. There was no comfort in being so thoroughly proven right.

Time blurred as the caffeine, predictably, failed to take effect. Her metabolism seemed to be getting more efficient every day, which was frankly unfair, although just at the moment it was something of a mercy. Before she knew it, there were rustling and scraping noises as the students around her got up from their seats, gathered their belongings, and trundled out of the classroom. With a sigh, she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, gathering her energy. (Why couldn’t super-strength have come with a higher tolerance for sleep deprivation? In what twisted universe did that make sense?)

There was a small throat-clearing noise, and she realized that someone was standing next to her in the aisle, probably waiting to get past and out. “Sorry,” she mumbled, scrambling to stuff her notebook and (unused) pen back in her bag, and looking up - but the person standing there wasn’t in any hurry, just leaning casually with one hip against the seat-backs of the row in front of them. Lanky, spare frame relaxed, collared denim shirt unbuttoned down to so little cleavage that it didn’t really merit the name. Strands of unruly red hair drifting into warm brown eyes. A swell of mixed interest and panic rose in Kelly’s chest.

Avery reached down and picked up Kelly’s phone from where it sat precariously at the edge of the fold-out desk. She couldn’t access it, of course, but she still tapped at it thoughtfully, as though composing a message. “Better make sure you have office hours in your calendar, kiddo. Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4:30 P.M., sharp.”

With an embarrassed huff of laughter, Kelly stood, shouldering her bag, and held her hand out for the phone. “Believe me, there are multiple notifications already set up.” Their fingers brushed as Avery easily relinquished the device.

There were times when Kelly was completely sure that she was being flirted with, although she knew PhD students had to sign some kind of University ethics contract when they took teaching positions. There’d been an article on the website in the fall, a PR puff piece, and much-promoted. Avery was just being friendly to a struggling former straight-A student in over her head. Which Kelly really shouldn’t be. Wouldn’t be, if she were a normal (former) straight-A student, so it stung a little - but Avery had a way of taking the sting out. And she probably couldn’t help being so absurdly appealing. She was so totally un-self-conscious.

The psychics on the Council could probably sense Kelly’s crush from Triton Base.

She really had to get out of there - she didn’t have much dignity to preserve at this point, but she’d rather Avery didn’t think she was a complete disaster (disgrace) (dangerous incompetent). “I have a thing--dining hall shift--in ten, I have to get going. I’ll see you tomorrow at 4:30?” Belatedly snatching up the empty coffee cup, she started to beat an ungraceful, but merciful, retreat.

“... Intrepid.”

And just like that, she froze. The sensation of ice down her spine, a yawning chasm of dread and incomprehension and horror. That--she couldn’t have heard--she started to turn back to the woman behind her, but then she spoke again, a new note of focus replacing her normally relaxed, offhand tone.

“Stay there. You’re not going to the dining hall right now. You’re only going to move when and how I tell you.”

And Kelly obeyed. She had to. Her body had completely stopped responding to her as she stood, staring straight ahead at nothing.

Well, most parts of it, at least. Her breath began to come faster, adrenaline uselessly flooding her nervous system. Her mind raced, trying to make sense of this, make the connection. It was right there, obvious -

A low, warm chuckle. Entirely familiar, and before now, much desired. “Surprise?”

Avery was standing right behind her now, out of Kelly’s line of sight, but she could feel the warmth of the body that was only just not touching hers. Avery’s tone belied the tension building in that scant space, casual, if maybe a little arch. “I never said you couldn’t talk, you know.”

But Kelly didn’t have the first clue what to say. Well, except for the one, most obvious thing she possibly could, which was: “Piper.” This earned her a snort.

“See, you’re smarter than you look.” Kelly’s heart stuttered, still painfully out of step with this sudden shift in reality - and unused to the sting in that familiar voice, in this setting, this context. This towering crash of her two lives, always precarious, trying to occupy the same moment at once.

It’s amazing what context can do. Kelly was letting the pieces tumble together faster now, their gravity irresistible and terrible. A different haircut, color - no mask, no expensive leather - the most laid-back, furthest from commanding sort of demeanor, and so ordinary, such a normal thing, an attractive grad student who effortlessly made her most boring class of the semester bearable, even something to look forward to ...

Avery the Advanced Statistics TA had absolutely nothing in common with the sleek, smug, costumed conwoman whose voice could make the people she got close to do anything, give her everything, betray their values and spouses and countries without a blink or murmur. Except that they were, somehow, the same person.

And Kelly had been letting her get close - trying so hard, so unsubtly, to invite her closer - for months. The Piper (which was a stupid name, by the way - it didn’t fit her M.O. of singling out individual targets at all) had had all the time she could possibly need to assimilate the patterns of Kelly’s brainwaves, wander intimately through the electrical signals that formed her thoughts, and find exactly which buttons to push. There was no defense against her powers with that kind of exposure. Kelly was well and truly fucked.

'Avery' gave a low chuckle. Kelly didn’t think she could literally read thoughts, not in the traditional sense - but her captor could clearly sense the gist of that sentiment.

“Aw, kiddo,” she drawled, making Kelly wince internally at the familiar endearment, the faux tone of concern. “It’s not as bad as all _that_. I’m not going to hurt you, or at least, not much - nothing you can’t handle, I’m sure.” A hand tweaked strands of Kelly’s hair, knuckles grazing her upper back, and her body ached with the fruitless need to shudder violently at the touch. “You might even enjoy yourself, really. I know _I’ve_ been looking forward to this for an awfully long time.”

“Wh--”

“Hush now,” the Piper said before Kelly could get a question out. “No talking until I say - I promise, I’ll let you have your voice in just a bit. But let’s get some privacy, shall we? There’s another class in here soon, and I think we’ve both had quite enough of that for one day.”

Kelly absolutely boiled with the need to snap off a quip about just how “classy” the Piper wasn’t, her frustration compounded by the Piper’s delighted laugh. A quick, sharp slap to her ass made her want to jump right out of her skin, though every part of her remained stubbornly still and unresponsive.

“Come on, we’re going to walk to your car. Keep up, and stop looking so murderous. We don’t want anyone getting suspicious.”

Completely against her own volition, Kelly’s shoulders dropped, and her face rearranged into what she assumed must be a cheerfully neutral expression, although without the matching emotion the movement of her facial muscles just felt horrible and alien. Her body made its way out of the row of seats, and followed her kidnapper out of the classroom, leaving her mind to scream and curse and spiral uselessly, a helpless passenger.

  


It was exactly the kind of nondescript warehouse where you’d expect a supervillain to keep her secret lair, out past the industrial park. The Piper parked Kelly’s beat-up old Toyota next to a rusted dumpster around the back, and led her through a small door and up a narrow flight of metal stairs to the second floor. The heavy, blank door at the top, however, didn’t exactly lead into the torture chamber Kelly had been imagining.

For all appearances, they were in a spacious, airy studio apartment, well-lit by a row of windows ringing all four walls, set snugly up against the high ceiling. There were houseplants, a huge couch facing a flat-screen tv, a sophisticated computer array set up on a sleek standing desk against one wall, a little kitchen area with colorful mugs drying in the dish rack, and a set of stairs up to a little loft platform with a big, cozy king-sized bed. Everything was much higher-end than Avery the T.A. could ever have afforded on her stipend, and the place was huge, but apart from that it was pretty mundane.

The Piper didn’t give her much chance to take it in before her hand settled once more, with deceptive lightness, between Kelly’s shoulder blades. “Move,” she murmured with a sharp little push, and steered Kelly right to the couch, which was broad and soft and sturdy-looking. “Down,” she directed, and Kelly’s knees took that as an instruction to just … give out, toppling her awkwardly face-first into the cushions. She gritted her teeth against the discomfort as the Piper stood over her, chuckling, and ran her fingers carelessly through the mess of Kelly’s hair.

“Good girl,” the Piper purred softly, “that’s just the kind of response I wanted.” Kelly realized that she had leaned down, her face close to Kelly’s ear. An inhalation - was the Piper _smelling_ her?

“I do enjoy the flavor of your neural patterns, kiddo. It’s so nice to finally sink my fingers into them, to really get in there and play.” There was a small sound as the Piper straightened. “Much as this sprawl is adorable, though, I don’t want you drooling into the furniture right now. Go ahead and sit yourself up.”

Feeling a slight tremor in one arm from the uncomfortable way it had been pinned, Kelly levered herself up and over into a sitting position. Hair caught against her lips and brushed maddeningly across one eye, but her hands rested on the couch beside her. The Piper gave a sympathetic cluck and smoothed the offending strands back, tucking them safely behind her ears.

Kelly could feel her face burning as she stared up at her crush, her captor, standing close and touching her with such casual intimacy. Her heart wanted to leap into her throat at the thrill, but her skin crawled with wrongness.

“You’re having a rough day, huh?” The Piper straightened, looking down at her again. “You can talk now, if you want.”

Kelly wanted to spit defiance and rage, but instead found herself croaking out, “what are you going to do with me? What do you WANT? If you think I’m going to betray the Council, work for you--”

The Piper clicked her tongue in admonition. “All the cliches! Sugar, if I wanted you to do those things, what exactly would you do to stop me?”

“I’d think of something,” Kelly growled, trying to bluff. “You couldn’t take your eyes off me for a second.” True at first, probably. The grip the Piper had on her right now was more physical, more autonomic, than psychological. Well … mostly not psychological, anyway. But she'd seen the files on the Piper’s longer-term victims. After a time, the controlling effect became true brainwashing, complete with total loyalty and commitment. Deprogramming had not, so far, been effective in advanced cases.

The truth was, Stellarus would probably have to take her down. He could do that without hurting her too much … probably. She was getting stronger all the time, for all the good it did her. She could do a lot of damage in the wrong hands.

She wasn’t much of a strategist, but she could certainly be a weapon.

She was startled out of this grim train of thought when warm fingers grasped her chin and tilted it up, her head falling back, unresisting. She stared up at the Piper, who was standing right in her personal space, almost straddling Kelly’s legs. The familiar hint of something spicy, cinnamon and clove, which she’d noticed during past office hours, hit her right in the gut. A pang of desire mixed with despair.

“That’s right,” the Piper murmured. “You can’t do much of anything, can you? And unfortunately for you, I have no interest in looking away.” And she reached down and shoved Kelly’s shoulders back, climbing onto the couch to loom over her, kneeling over her lap. Kelly’s heart was in her throat in spite of herself, and she lay there passive, unable to respond or move away, while the woman she’d been smitten with for months grabbed her face and kissed her roughly. The Piper’s tongue forced its way past her already parted lips, one hand firmly grasping around Kelly’s throat, and took its time exploring while the air grew stale in Kelly’s lungs, unable to struggle for breath.

Finally, with a sharp nip to Kelly’s lower lip, she drew back, panting a little; some of that smooth, smug confidence having given way to an intensity and hunger that were alarming. Kelly felt cold and hot at once, the hairs at the nape of her neck prickling, and a deep pang of heat intruding between her legs. Which, no. No?

It didn’t even occur to Kelly to try to talk. She sat there like a doll while the Piper settled herself in Kelly’s lap, denim scraping denim, staring at her hotly. Her cheeks were flushed, Kelly noted with absent fascination, highlighting the tiny freckles that dusted her skin. On Avery, it would have looked cute, but this ... had never been Avery. There was a violence lurking in those newly unfamiliar brown eyes, a desire that wanted to devour Kelly whole. She felt her body throb again in response, in spite of everything.

“I was going to draw this out more,” the Piper muttered, apparently as much to herself as to the transfixed superheroine between her thighs, “but I … I have to take the edge off.” Then she gave Kelly a smirk that uncomfortably echoed Avery’s gentler, lopsided smile, and ran a fingertip over Kelly’s aching lip. “You can help me with that, hero. I know you want to be helpful, don’t you?”

“Y-yes …” Kelly gasped in shock as soon as the word was out, easy as anything; but after all, her body wasn’t her own anymore. Vocal cords, tongue, soft palette, breath … procedural memory, language … if the Piper wanted something, Kelly’s body would provide.

The weight of the Piper left her lap, and there was the sharp sound of a zipper. Kelly’s eyes refocused in time to show her captor sliding her jeans unceremoniously over her slender hips and down, stepping out and kicking them aside. She wore a pair of simple navy boy-cut briefs, exactly the kind of thing Kelly would have imagined Avery wearing. She could feel the hysteria rising, staring at the dark, damp patch in the middle of the blue cloth. This couldn’t be - this wasn’t what she wanted. This wasn’t Avery. Avery didn’t exist.

She had to say something, had to pull herself together. Parting suddenly dry lips, she croaked out, “Piper --”

“Oh no,” the villain murmured, almost a hiss, “we can’t have that. I need you wet.” She leaned down, grabbed a hank of Kelly’s hair right against her scalp, and yanked her head back so that their eyes met at close range. “You're going to respond this time, too,” she instructed against her lips, “and kiss me back.”

This time, Kelly’s mouth opened wide to receive the Piper’s tongue as it delved mercilessly deep, devouring the involuntary moan that slipped out. Some tiny part of Kelly’s mind that was still detached noted what apparently did and did not constitute “response” as she moved her mouth with the Piper’s, nerve endings lighting with desire even as part of her still wanted to shrink away in shame. The hand in her hair clenched tighter, drawing sharp, clawing pain, and Kelly’s answering gasp was muffled wetly between them. The Piper gave a throaty growl of pleasure and disengaged. With a small heave, she stepped right up onto the couch, bracing her knees on the back to either side of Kelly’s face.

“Use your hands to steady me,” she ordered, and as Kelly’s hands came up obediently, she grabbed at one of them and brought it firmly against her ass, hissing with apparent pleasure at the contact. Kelly’s hands, of their own accord, cupped her firmly, her strength easily taking the Piper’s weight even at the awkward angle. The Piper’s hand found its way back into Kelly’s hair, using it as a handle to shove her head back against the cushions, looking right up to where the Piper’s other hand roughly fumbled the crotch of her underwear aside, revealing slick, glistening folds. Kelly inhaled helplessly, the musky smell of the Piper’s desire hitting her immediately. She felt her mouth fill with saliva.

“Make it good,” the Piper’s voice cut through the haze of surreal arousal; the commanding grip of her power forcing Kelly to stay present, unable to pretend that this was anything more consensual. Her whole body tensed with readiness for its next task. “You're going to give me the best head of your life, little hero.” And she shoved herself down, grinding her dripping sex against Kelly’s face.

The weight of the body above her was smothering and inescapable. Her mouth opened, tasting the sharp, animal flavor of arousal as it was smeared over her mouth, her nose, dripping over her chin. She flicked her tongue out, tentative at first, to trace the folds of flesh there, flickering up and down the length of the slit that seemed ready to engulf her.

She’d thought about this before, plausibly deniable in her bed at night; about how she’d tease Avery if she had a chance, take her time exploring in some dark, cozy bedroom. Make her laugh and groan, until she asked with a breathy attempt at wryness if Kelly was ever going to get on with it …

But now, in this brightly-lit apartment, staring at the small slice of ceiling framed by 'Avery’s' thighs, there was no asking. Those thighs clenched against the sides of her head, insistent, and the hand in her hair jerked it painfully. She had to make it good. Kelly focused her licking, swirling her tongue around the Piper’s cunt before swiping up firmly over her clit. This elicited an approving groan from above, and she automatically focused in, laving and manipulating the swollen nub with lips and tongue and judicious suction until with a curse, the Piper’s hands grabbed both sides of her head and the weight above her bore down, and there was little Kelly could do but hang on as the Piper rode her face mercilessly to a shuddering, growling orgasm that mashed Kelly's head back into the couch cushions as the body above her shook and clenched.

At long last, the suffocating, wet heat lifted and the Piper dismounted, sliding down to sit beside her, panting. Kelly lay there, head still tilted back, her hands coming down to rest in her own lap. The air of the apartment was cool on her wet, defiled skin. No words came; she tried to focus her thoughts on her breathing.

There was a low chuckle from beside her. “That was better than I expected,” the Piper admitted, sounding a little breathless. “Top marks, kiddo. No office hours for you.” Kelly let out a pained exhalation, imprisoned by a body that wouldn’t let her wince away from the mocking dissonance. One lazy hand stroked across her chest, idly teasing at her nipple underneath her clothes, igniting a strange, ambivalent tide of sensation.

“D-don’t--” She managed to force out, not having been instructed against it. The Piper’s fingers instantly tightened, twisting her flesh and fabric all together. A small, pained noise escaped her throat as her tormentor leaned in, mouth nearly against her ear.

“Now that,” she crooned, “is an incorrect response. No more playing the stoic for you, Intrepid.” Her hand slid down Kelly’s front, deftly undoing the button of her jeans. “Not after all those weeks of puppy-dog looks in class, biting your lip and blushing, _begging_ me to take you. Your synapses were screaming with it.” Her hand wormed its way under denim and found … spandex, surprising a sharp, mocking laugh out of her.

“My my, will you look at that!” And Kelly couldn’t see her, still couldn’t lift her head, but the Piper was leaning over, clearly peering down at where Intrepid’s uniform was revealed through her open fly and beneath her rucked-up shirt. “Didn’t even manage to change before class this morning? Or do you just wear it all the time? Always ready for action …”

Kelly couldn’t think of a response, and the Piper’s hands were exploring the surface of the fabric, rubbing and pressing in below her belly button, circling. The pressure set off little shocks of pleasure deep inside, and with a sinking mixture of arousal and disgust, Kelly came to full awareness of just how wet she was, of how much her hips wanted to cant up, invite that hand to slide lower.

“Ask me.”

She jolted with the need to obey, but the command wasn’t specific. “Wh-what?”

“Ask me for what you want.”

“Let me - let me go -”

A sudden, searing smack right between the legs tore a cry from her, her body straining between imprisonment and the need to jerk wildly. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes.

“No. Tell me what you want me to do to you. To your body. Tell the truth.”

“I - I want -” her voice was thick with shock and pain and yes, horrible, undeniable wanting. “I want you to touch me.”

“Awww,” there was that crooning mock-sympathy, and the hand that stroked lightly between her legs, inside her jeans, was soft against trembling, stinging flesh, barely felt through spandex. “But I am touching you, kiddo. Do you want me to _fuck_ you?”

A hitch in her breath, but her mouth opened of its own accord, helplessly spilling out, “y-yes.”

“Do you want me to make you come?”

“Yes …”

“Ask for it.” And the Piper’s tone was so cold, it made her break into goosebumps, pushed the words past her teeth in tumbling, desperate urgency. “Please, P-piper, make me come, please.”

“I think you can do better than that,” the unyielding voice chided, hands unhurriedly tugging at the tops of her jeans, opening them further, adjusting them lower on her hips, but not removing them.

“Look at me.” Kelly raised her head at last--it felt as heavy as a lump of lead--and took in the uncomfortably familiar face, the intent, amused gaze.

“Oh, you want this so much,” she murmured. “I can _smell_ you. What would that mentor of yours think, if he could see you now? The mess I’ve made of your face, and the desire just pouring off you, thick enough to taste?”

A shiver of revulsion ran through her. Stellarus. Oh god. She’d just - she’d just have to die. Oh fuck, what if -

“That might be fun sometime.”

Fuck.

But the flesh under the Piper’s hand, under the uniform that Stellarus gave her, throbbed in unchecked need. A whimper escaped her, and she couldn’t tell what, exactly, she was responding to, but there was desperation in it. Oh, she wanted this so much?

She did. Certainly now, she did.

“Oh, sugar. Go on. Beg for what you need.”

“I--god, please, Piper, fuck me. Please. I need it.” She couldn’t stop the awful whine that crept into her voice, the humiliating, exposing honesty of it. Hot tears were spilling freely down her cheeks, because she did need this, even though it wasn't _really_ what she wanted, not under the dumb, instinctive, manipulated craving of her body. Not like _this_.

“Good girl.” An ugly tangle of warmth and self-loathing at the praise. “You're going to be so good for me.”

“You're not going to resist me or try to get up, but I do want you to react, kiddo. You're going to put on a good show for me; show me you deserve it.” That distressingly appealing crooked grin. Kelly was moaning lustily almost before the fingers slid the rest of the way down to stroke her firmly through the fabric of her uniform, pressing it against and then inside her as the pleasure built inexorably towards total surrender.

  


Kelly stood blinking in the late morning light streaming through the high warehouse windows, giving everything inside an amber tinge. “Everything” being a few dust motes, a dead leaf … the stairs up to a bare platform jutting out from the high wall.

No sign of the bed where she’d been used repeatedly, her uniform sliced and torn from her unresisting body. Where she’d unthinkingly stuttered out “Avery” when commanded into orgasm, and shuddered through the Piper’s laughter as she’d complied. And kept complying.

There was nothing left of the comfortable living space she’d been brought to the day before; just bare walls and a scuffed floor, abandoned, industrial, anonymous. If she hadn’t found her own car parked by the dumpster out back, she might have thought she was losing her mind. Not that she could rule out that possibility.

_The Piper gave a contented little sigh as she fell back against the sheets. “I think that will do, little hero,” she smiled over at Kelly where she knelt, naked and coated in sweat and other fluids, beside the bed. “You can see yourself out. You're going to walk straight home, and you won't stop until you get there, or talk to anyone. Go right to bed, and go to sleep. You look like you need it.” There was a touch of fondness, maybe even concern, in her voice - somehow, Kelly was sure she wasn’t imagining that. Was she? Then, with a wry chuckle as Kelly began to straighten up, she added, “Put your clothes on first.”_

She’d woken up at her alarm, on top of the sheets, still dressed in the hoodie and jeans she’d worn to class. Her body, once thoroughly scrubbed, showed no more sign of the previous day’s events than did the warehouse; bruises and scrapes all wiped cleanly away by her body’s accelerated healing. She wasn't even sore down _there_. The damage was entirely internal, now.

Her uniform, however, was missing. Last seen in pieces on the floor, not far from where she was standing.

Kelly was just .... numb. Stellarus was due back tomorrow, but she couldn’t begin to think about that. What to tell him about her uniform. What had happened with the prison break two nights before.

What a liability she had become; a time bomb ticking away in her head, vulnerable to an infiltration that could come at any time. She’d poured through the Council database; as far as anyone had been able to determine thus far, the strength of the Piper’s hold on a victim was cumulative, until their will had been completely eroded. Until all they wanted, waking or sleeping, was to do hers instead. So far, the process hadn’t been reversed in any of the survivors; at least one of whom was not capable of living independently.

The thought of seeing her, hearing her voice again, filled Kelly with a clawing, nauseous terror. But not … only that.

There was a tinny chiming sound from her back pocket; distractedly, she fished out her phone and looked down at the screen, blinking to read it through the glare from the windows. It was a calendar notification.

STATS OFFICE HOURS TONITE! ;)


End file.
